Manchester Central High School
Manchester · NH · Manchester School District · Public
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Manchester Memorial High School → Goffstown High School → Manchester West High School → Merrimack High School → Londonderry Senior High School → Windham High School → Salem High School → Pembroke Academy →📋 At a glance
- 📚 14 AP courses offered — Elite
- ✅ Dual-enrollment program (college credit while in HS)
- 🔢 2 calculus classes · 2 physics · 11 chemistry
- 🎓 AP rigor: 86th percentile nationally
- 📝 SAT/ACT participation: 73th percentile by test-taker volume
- 🎓 4-yr grad rate: 75% (Bottom 21% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate)
Composed from federal CRDC offerings, EDFacts ACGR, and other public data. Full breakdowns below.
How Manchester Central High School compares for families
Standout academic depth by national standards.
- ▸ StatewideAP rigor in the top 14% nationally with 14 AP courses.
- ▸ LocallyNH students outperform the US average on NAEP 8th-grade math (+7 points).
- ▸ vs Similar SchoolsThe closest comparables nearby: Manchester Memorial High School, Goffstown High School, Manchester West High School and 5 more. See the sidebar to compare side-by-side.
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🎓 Academic rigor
AP + advanced-course offerings
Elite — exceptional AP + advanced course breadth
86th percentile nationally
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). CRDC reports what's offered + enrolled — it doesn't collect AP exam pass rates (College Board owns that data and doesn't release it school-level).
SAT / ACT participation
CRDC federal data · 2020-2173th percentile by test-taker volume
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2020-21). Volume — not score — is what's reported here. A higher count means more students at this school are entering the college admissions pipeline. Note: 2020-21 was COVID-disrupted; some districts (especially those that stayed remote longer) report unusually low or zero takers.
🎓 4-year graduation rate · federal EDFacts
What % of students graduate on time?
Bottom 21% of US high schools by 4-yr grad rate
Source: federal EDFacts ACGR (Adjusted Cohort Graduation Rate), 2019 vintage via Urban Institute. EDFacts publishes a range (low-high) to preserve privacy on small cohorts; we display the midpoint.
👩🏫 Teacher workforce · federal CRDC
Teacher experience & reliability
Source: federal Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC 2017-18 — the most recent vintage that publishes per-school teacher quality fields; the 2020-21 sweep had them suppressed). "Inexperienced" = teachers in their first or second year. "Chronic absence" = teachers absent 10+ days/year.
🏛️ Federal Title I context
Title I Schoolwide eligible
≥40% FRPL — qualifies for Title I Schoolwide program
40-74% of students qualify for free/reduced lunch. The district can use Title I funds across the whole school under federal Schoolwide Program rules.
Source: NCES Common Core of Data, free/reduced-price lunch eligibility. The actual Title I designation is a district decision and may differ from eligibility — but the federal eligibility math is what we show here. We don't claim to assert whether the district formally chose to enroll this school in Title I.
🏛️ Your state's public flagship
University of New Hampshire-Main Campus
The in-state tuition gap is the flagship's biggest draw — most in-state families pay far less than the out-of-state sticker. Average net price after aid runs about $23,805/yr. Admission odds depend on your student's GPA and test scores, not which high school they attend.
Source: IPEDS admissions, tuition & enrollment + College Scorecard net price. Flagship = the state's primary public research university.
Chronic absenteeism
Why this matters to enrollment: Chronic absence is the most reliable early indicator that a student will leave a school — either by transferring out, dropping out, or matriculating to a charter or private alternative. At this level, today's absentees become next year's enrollment loss and the year-after's revenue loss. For school leaders: an Enrollment Trend Audit traces this dynamic forward →
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020–2021. Rate = students chronically absent ÷ 2024 total enrollment.
Counselor capacity
Source: U.S. Department of Education, Civil Rights Data Collection 2020-2021. Counselor ratio = the school's most recent total enrollment ÷ counselor FTE. The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends a 250:1 maximum; the US national median across schools with on-staff counselors is roughly 430:1.
Enrollment trend & projection
Total enrollment + grade 12, NCES Common Core of Data (2021–2024).
If the recent trend holds…
At its recent rate of -4.6%/year, projecting from 2024's 1,130 students:
≈ 236 fewer students by 2029 — a real revenue/relevance risk worth getting ahead of.
An extrapolation of the recent trajectory, not a forecast of the school's plans; ignores one-off shocks.
Revenue at risk
At $17,024 per student in district revenue, the 236 students projected to be lost by 2029 represent ≈ $4,017,664/year in funding at risk.
District total revenue ÷ enrollment, NCES F-33. Public funding largely follows enrollment, so a shrinking class is a recurring budget hit.
Most similar nearby high schools
The schools most like this one — same type, blended on distance and size — and where their enrollment is heading. These are the schools families here weigh against each other.
| School | Type | Miles | HS enrollment | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manchester Memorial High School Manchester |
Public | 2.0 | 1,296 | -11.2% |
| Goffstown High School Goffstown |
Public | 6.7 | 1,008 | +0.3% |
| Manchester West High School Manchester |
Public | 1.1 | 764 | -0.4% |
| Merrimack High School Merrimack |
Public | 9.4 | 1,057 | -8.4% |
| Londonderry Senior High School Londonderry |
Public | 9.4 | 1,289 | -7.2% |
| Windham High School Windham |
Public | 15.2 | 945 | -10.5% |
| Salem High School Salem |
Public | 19.1 | 1,116 | -4.2% |
| Pembroke Academy Pembroke |
Public | 10.6 | 744 | -2.0% |